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meredithspragg@gmail.com

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Literacy Learners for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers

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Literacy Learners for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers

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Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers: Key Practices for Educators

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Learn more about Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers

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Teachers know that encouraging young children to talk and listen improves their ability to communicate. This book gives them a power tool aligned with the science of reading: the "Strive-for-Five" framework. These responsive conversations start with what children say and continue as the teacher listens and responds over five turns-with the goal of stretching their talking and thinking, knowledge, vocabulary, reasoning, and other skills that underpin reading success.

In an accessible format that contains video clips, along with classroom anecdotes and model conversations, Zucker and Cabell show why Strive-for-Five conversations are important and how teachers can use them to engage children and develop their language comprehension. As teachers use the framework to build students' knowledge, vocabulary, reasoning, and other skills that underpin reading success, they'll also see students' confidence grow as they share their individual stories, ideas, and question s.

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Strive-for-Five Conversations: A Framework That Gets Kids Talking to Accelerate Their Language Comprehension and Literacy (The Science of Reading in Practice)

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Amazon.com: Strive-for-Five Conversations: A Framework That Gets Kids Talking to Accelerate Their Language Comprehension and Literacy (The Science of Reading in Practice): 9781546113881: Zucker, Tricia, Cabell, Sonia: Books

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A great way to use visuals (art) to support language and create a literacy rich environment (make displays and books out of discussions)

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Visual Thinking Strategies for Preschool: Using Art to Enhance Literacy and Social Skills [Yenawine, Philip] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Visual Thinking Strategies for Preschool: Using Art to Enhance Literacy and Social Skills

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A Teacher's Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day

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A Teacher's Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day

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A Teacher’s Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day

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In this companion to their bestselling first book, David and Meredith Liben move beyond foundational skills to explore how the mind comprehends texts. They translate research in clear terms to help teachers understand what students truly need to read deeply for pleasure and with purpose. Focusing on vocabulary, knowledge building, and language structures, they provide cutting-edge instructional ideas and ready-to-use tools to help teachers put their understanding into action immediately.

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Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension: Fueling the Reading Brain With Knowledge, Vocabulary, and Rich Language

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In this companion to their bestselling first book, David and Meredith Liben move beyond foundational skills to explore how the mind comprehends texts. They translate research in clear terms to help teachers understand what students truly need to read deeply for pleasure and with purpose. Focusing...

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The Essentials: Supporting Dual Language Learners in Diverse Environments in Preschool and Kindergarten

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The Essentials: Supporting Dual Language Learners in Diverse Environments in Preschool and Kindergarten

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The Essentials: Supporting Dual Language Learners in Diverse Environments in Preschool and Kindergarten

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Learn more about The Essentials: Supporting Dual Language Learners in Diverse Environments in Preschool and Kindergarten

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What the Science of Reading Says: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood

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What the Science of Reading Says: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood

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What the Science of Reading Says: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood (What The Science Says)

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Amazon.com: What the Science of Reading Says: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood (What The Science Says): 9781087696720: Jodene Smith M.A.: Books

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The Power of Play: Mastering the 7 Dynamic Learning Zones

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The Power of Play: Mastering the 7 Dynamic Learning Zones [Kriegler, Lili-Ann] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Power of Play: Mastering the 7 Dynamic Learning Zones

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Building on the success of the original best-seller, this new edition of The Writing Revolution adds valuable guidance for teachers seeking a way to bring their students' writing ability up to rigorous state standards. As thousands of educators have already discovered, The Writing Revolution provides the road map they need, clearly explaining how to incorporate the Hochman Method into their instruction, no matter what subject or grade they're teaching and regardless of the ability level of their students. The new edition provides a reorganized sequence of activities and even more student-facing examples, making it easier than ever to bring the method to your classroom.

The Writing Revolution isn't a separate curriculum or program teachers need to juggle. Rather, it is a method providing strategies and activities that teachers can adapt to their preexisting curriculum and weave into their content instruction. By focusing on specific techniques that match their students' needs and providing them with targeted feedback, The Writing Revolution can turn weak writers into strong and confident communicators. In addition, the method can:

The Writing Revolution takes the mystery out of teaching students to write well.

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The Writing Revolution 2.0: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades

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Buy The Writing Revolution 2.0: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades: Read Kindle Store Reviews - Amazon.com

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What the Science of Reading Says About Writing

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What the Science of Reading Says About Writing

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Unlock the keys to helping students become skilled writers who effectively communicate ideas through engaging and meaningful written expression. This practical, research-based guide is part of a powerful series offering actionable insights for today's classrooms.

In this book, Jennifer Jump and Kathleen Kopp provide everything teachers need to improve students' writing, including:

A clear overview of the research : Explore teaching strategies for the writing process, genres, syntax, grammar, and more.

Classroom-ready strategies : Discover actionable, research-aligned techniques for every grade-level band.

Practical tools : Access key terms, definitions, vivid classroom examples, teaching checklists, and reflection questions to drive meaningful instruction.

Actionable insights : Learn how to connect research with effective classroom practices to maximize student success.

Designed to be easy to use, this resource equips teachers with the tools and strategies to build strong, confident writers. Start turning educational research into real classroom impact today!

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What the Science of Reading Says about Writing (What The Science Says)

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Amazon.com: What the Science of Reading Says about Writing (What The Science Says): 9781087696713: Jennifer Jump M.A., Hillary Wolfe: Books

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Susan Magsamen (Author), Ivy Ross (Author)

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Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us

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Buy Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders

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Brain Targeted Teaching Model - pre order :)

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Brain Targeted Teaching Model - pre order :)

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The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model: A Framework for Joyful Learning and Leading

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The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model: A Framework for Joyful Learning and Leading [Hardiman, Mariale M.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model: A Framework for Joyful Learning and Leading

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Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

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To Teach Vocabulary, Let Students Be Thespians

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To Teach Vocabulary, Let Students Be Thespians

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To Teach Vocabulary, Let Students Be Thespians

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Integrating Literacy and the Arts to Nurture Empowered Storytellers How to Use Creative Expression to Enhance Literacy Skills-2

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To Boost Kids' Vocabulary, We Need to Build Their Knowledge

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To Boost Kids' Vocabulary, We Need to Build Their Knowledge

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Vocabulary is key to reading comprehension, and there are effective ways to teach it. But the only way to enable children to acquire the massive amount of vocabulary they need is to build their knowledge.

Having an extensive vocabulary generally means you're a good reader, assuming you know how to decipher, or "decode," written words. And if you read widely, you're likely to acquire even more vocabulary-making you an even better reader.

For children who start out with a lot of vocabulary, that's a virtuous cycle. But for others, it's a cruel Catch-22: They don't have the vocabulary that would enable them to read widely, which means they can't engage in the very activity that would help them to acquire the vocabulary they need to become good readers.

It's important to bear in mind that written texts use a greater number of unique words than spoken language- and those words are more sophisticated. So a student who has no trouble carrying on a conversation might still struggle with the vocabulary in books.

A study comparing oral language to written texts looked at a wide range of samples and found- according to reading expert Marilyn Jager Adams-that "without exception, the richness and complexity of the words used in the oral language samples paled in comparison with the written texts." She adds that "of all the oral language samples evaluated, the only one that exceeded even preschool books in lexical range was expert witness testimony."

Children who start school with large vocabularies typically pick up sophisticated words at home, usually because they come from highly educated families. Other children may be stumped by words used even in elementary-level texts.

Over 20 years ago, reading researcher Louisa Moats found that the kindergartners she was studying, who came from low-income families, got an average score in the fifth percentile on a commonly used test of oral vocabulary. When shown pictures to match words to, they were unable to come up with vocabulary like penguin, sewing, and parachute. By second and third grade they had moved up to the fifteenth percentile but still didn't know words like amazed, locket, balcony, and weasel. "By fourth grade," Moats wrote, "many students are clearly lost in the more complex text they encounter in school, even if their decoding skills are good."

Unfortunately, the only thing that has changed in the last two decades is that fourth-graders are less likely to be expected to read complex text. Instead they're limited to simple texts they can read on their own, on the theory that such an approach will equip them to read more complex texts. We've only postponed the day of reckoning to high school, where texts suddenly assume a lot of academic vocabulary many students don't have.

Elementary schools can and should explicitly teach children the kind of vocabulary words they'll be expected to know at higher grade levels. But some approaches work better than others.

Building vocabulary isn't just a matter of giving kids a list of words and definitions. A word is just the tip of an iceberg of knowledge. If kids learn a vocabulary word with no context, they might memorize the definition but they probably won't truly understand its meaning or be able to use or remember it. And to really grasp and retain a new word, students need to encounter it not just in one context but repeatedly.

So, rather than reading books on random topics, which is the standard practice in elementary classrooms, students should be exposed to a series of texts organized around a single topic, over at least two or three weeks. The topics covered should also build on each other, so that when students move on to a new one they have most of the key vocabulary needed to understand it. In other words, the curriculum should be organized to systematically build knowledge. (The website of the Knowledge Matters Campaign has more information on that kind of curriculum.)

Vocabulary words that are taught directly should be drawn from texts in the curriculum-and teachers should introduce them by reading the texts aloud. That's how it's possible to break out of that Catch-22 that seems to prevent children from acquiring sophisticated vocabulary they don't already have. Before they're fluent readers, kids can take in more complex concepts and vocabulary through listening than through their own reading. Once they've heard a word a few times in meaningful contexts and, ideally, used it in class discussion, they're more likely to understand it in texts they read independently.

A threshold question is which words in a text to target for instruction. A good curriculum will highlight them, but a general rule is to look for words that are commonly found in written but not spoken language-"Tier 2" words, according to a framework developed by researchers Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan. These include words like coincidence, absurd, and industrious. (Tier 1 includes common words that kids are likely to just pick up, like clock, and Tier 3 encompasses highly specialized words like isotope.)

In addition, it's a good idea to focus on words that are important to understanding the text at hand or likely to appear again in texts students will be expected to read in the near future. Beyond providing an understandable definition, teachers can relate a word to other concepts-for example, comparing pond to lake and ocean-and explain its other meanings. Even a simple word like fan can have multiple meanings-a ceiling fan, a sports fan-or be used as a verb ("She fanned herself in the hot room"). With more sophisticated words or phrases like medieval or middle class, there are so many possible nuances that-as history teacher and blogger Michael Fordham has written -you need a "knowledge party in your head."

But evidence tells us it's impossible to directly teach children all the words they need to become fully literate. It's been estimated that students need to learn around 100,000 words to understand the texts they're expected to read in kindergarten through eighth grade. According to reading researcher Mark Seidenberg, children need to add about eight new words a day during their first several years of schooling.

That means kids need to acquire vocabulary they haven't actually been taught. How can they do that? One possibility is to encourage them to look up words they don't know. But, while students should be made aware of dictionaries and glossaries-and Google-they may not understand the definitions they find. And breaking off reading a text to look up words repeatedly makes comprehension more difficult.

Students can also be taught to use context to infer the meanings of unfamiliar words. But, according to researcher Marilyn Adams, that works only about 50% of the time. And the students who are best at inferring meanings are those who already have an extensive vocabulary-another Catch-22.

A more powerful strategy is to teach students about the meanings of components of the words they're learning directly, like prefixes and suffixes, along with Greek and Latin roots. If they know that the un in unhappy means "not," they're more likely to understand a word like undistinguished. It's also helpful to teach word families: if the target word is celebrity, for example, bring in words like celebrate and celebration.

Still, none of this fully explains how some students are able to acquire the vast number of words they need to be successful readers. According to both Adams and Seidenberg, a study involving a computer model that simulates the process of acquiring vocabulary provides insight into what actually happens.

As researchers fed texts into the model, the computer built associations between each word in a text and those surrounding it. As associations between the words and the contexts grew, networks of knowledge became activated that extended to some that the model had never "read." In fact, according to Adams, "the amount the model learned about words that did not appear in a given reading was three times as much as what it learned about words that were in the reading."

That makes sense, Adams continues, if we think about it in terms of acquiring knowledge rather than vocabulary. If students learn about, say, lions and tigers, they'll also be acquiring general concepts and networks of words that apply to felines they haven't learned about-say, lynxes. If they then read about lynxes, they'll pretty much automatically have an understanding of what a lynx is.

Again, though, this process depends on systematically building children's knowledge. Reading one book on lions or tigers is unlikely to enable students to absorb and retain the network of information that will support their understanding of words they haven't been taught.

The bottom line is that "vocabulary" isn't really distinct from "comprehension," as a popular infographic suggests. And both aspects of literacy can only grow alongside knowledge. So if we want to boost students' vocabulary-and their reading comprehension-we need to systematically build their knowledge.
This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.

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To Boost Kids' Vocabulary, We Need to Build Their Knowledge

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It's impossible to directly teach students all the words they need to become proficient readers.

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To Help Students Read and Write, Shower Some Love on the Sentence

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To Help Students Read and Write, Shower Some Love on the Sentence

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To Help Students Read and Write, Shower Some Love on the Sentence

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The complex syntax of written language is often a stumbling block.

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Jeff Zwiers (Author), Sara R. Hamerla (Author)

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The K-3 Guide to Academic Conversations: Practices, Scaffolds, and Activities

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The K-3 Guide to Academic Conversations: Practices, Scaffolds, and Activities [Zwiers, Jeff, Hamerla, Sara R.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The K-3 Guide to Academic Conversations: Practices, Scaffolds, and Activities

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Jeff Zwiers (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Next Steps with Academic Conversations: New Ideas for Improving Learning Through Classroom Talk

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How to introduce buildable ideas and teach students how to develop and support them Equitable classroom discussions and how diverse backgrounds conversing can benefit social skills and emotional intelligence Highlights of new research-based theories on classroom conversation Ways to develop stu…

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Text sets engage, support, and save on planning time
You're in the middle of designing a new content unit for your students. You have your learning objective set, and now have to compile the texts and resources your students will use to learn about their next topic. Here begins the inspiring, but often lengthy process of pulling texts and resources, and creating discussion questions, assignments, and assessment materials. As you compile the materials you will use, you are considering the learning needs of your class materials that will spark strong engagement and foster deep critical thinking.

But what would it look like if students could engage on a choose-your-own-adventure approach when learning about content topics?

And how could incorporating the visual arts into content teaching deepen students' learning of topics?

Enter: Text Sets; text sets support educators by providing comprehensive resources that simultaneously save educators planning time.
So, what is a text set?
Text sets are intentionally grouped sets of texts and media resources focused on a specific topic. This is a way to quickly build knowledge and vocabulary through a volume of reading.

Text sets are valuable supports that present comprehensive resource collections that amplify critical discourse and deepen student learning. But they don't have to be limited to traditional reading materials; when content teachers incorporate visual arts text sets, they utilize a collection of visual materials to build upon an anchor text.

Visual art text sets can be a valuable resource for non-art educators to use to successfully increase student engagement and incorporate diverse perspectives and materials, which support varied learning styles. Using an Observe, Describe, Interpret, Connect & Reflect framework ( see below and downloadable here), teachers encourage students to look closely at the artworks and use evidence-based observation, as well as building on the observations of their peers, to think about and come to conclusions about the content of the artworks.

The NYS K-8 SS Framework identifies that "Students engaged and challenged to think like historians, raise questions, think critically, consider many perspectives, and gather evidence in support of their interpretations as they draw upon chronological thinking, historical comprehension, historical analysis and interpretation, historical research, and decision-making. These are the skills that will serve them well as participating citizens of a democracy."

Visual Text Sets in Action
Observation of artworks can be used in the Social Studies/History classroom to engage Social Studies Practice Thinking & Process skills and Common Core ELA/History Social Studies Literacy standards. When leading classes through the process of observing, making meaning of visual imagery, and discussing students' interpretations of artworks, the following are actively engaged:

Comparing and contrasting

Drawing inferences and making conclusions

Handling diversity of interpretations,

Looking for patterns

Supporting a position

Participating in group discussion

Decoding images

Drawing conclusions

Consider a middle school class who is studying World War II. I recently worked with Doodles Academy and Student Achievement Partners to develop an image-based text set that supported this topic through the presentation of artworks representing diverse perspectives, which will ultimately broaden students' understanding of the impact of the war on a global level.

Below is a small sample of the text set, from the section exploring the experiences of Jewish civilians:

By incorporating images that represent a multitude of perspectives, and creating a space for students to observe, dissect, interrogate and discuss the meaning behind the works, students expand their understanding, make personal connections, and organize information to facilitate deep learning.

Student engagement can be heightened by allowing students to select their own choice of which works to engage, or by grouping students by known interests. Discussion questions that prompt students to make connections between artworks and anchor texts, of new and prior knowledge facilitate meaning-making, and help students to fill the "big picture."

This practice can be pushed even further by incorporating an art-making activity that prompts students to explore personal connections and reflections, and can be done in the content classroom, or in partnership with the art classroom.

Text sets serve as a powerful tool for educators by presenting well-researched, expert-created, structured resources for classroom learning, freeing up teachers' time to focus on the facilitation of student learning.

Want to learn more? Download the Doodles Academy Middle School World War II Visual Arts text set. Learn about Achieve the Core's approach to building Culturally Relevant Text Sets

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This post originally appeared on Doodles Academy Blog and has been reposted with permission from the author. Text sets engage, support, and save on planning time You're in the middle of designing a new content unit for your students. You have your learning objective set, and now have to compile the texts and resources your students [...]

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Get the basics on how to create classroom text sets that support content-area literacy and building background knowledge.

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Hi Teacher Friends! Melissa and Lori Love Literacy is a podcast that discusses all things literacy, tackling big ideas about the way we teach reading and writing within the science of reading.

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Webinar: Inspiring Higher-Level Thinking in Young Children

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BKK_SAT_Building a Language-Rich Classroom for Early Learners

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What happens to your brain on art? with Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen 

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What happens to your brain on art? with Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen 

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Using Writing in The (Reading) Classroom–The Amazing Success of First Year Teacher Emily Fleming, Teach Like a Champion

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[caption id=“attachment_17013” align=“aligncenter” width=“617”] Great task; great directions; great results[/caption] Last week I had the…

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Artful Thinking helps teachers use works of visual art and music in ways that strengthen student thinking and learning in the arts and beyond. The goals of this program are to help teachers create connections between works of art and the curriculum, and to help teachers use art as a force for develo…

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PDF including sentence charts

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BKK_ Sentence Structure in the PK-2 Classroom

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What the Science of Reading Says: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood

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What the Science of Reading Says: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood

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What the Science of Reading Says: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood - Strand Books

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Discover What the Science of Reading Says: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood by Jodene Smith. Available at Strand Book Store.